GVQC - April Meeting

Spring is here! We are having a few minutes of sunshine between rain showers so decided Joe's daffodils next door needed blog exposure!


This is Marcia Eygabroat with a quilt she did for her new twin granddaughters. She is an award winning quilter who designs and makes these beautiful pictoral quilts. Her big claim to fame is that she used to live on the same street I have the beach house in Kure!
The next four pictures are from a distance and the best you can do with a little less light. They are the product of a round robin that was organized by some quilt club members. I couldn't believe how many people were involved as quilts and tops kept streaming across the stage! Today was the day they got back their quilts!







This was a completed piece started in the Velda Newman workshop from last month!



Janet Fogg was our speaker and will be doing the workshoop over the next couple of days. Her quilts are magnificent but she didn't want any pictures to be put on the internet so... She incorporates pictorals and traditional blocks together into her quilts.

This is the progress on the heron. None of the pieces are sewn together yet, just taped onto the master pattern in sections. Those two really light pieces in his chest are history. They were a nice stripey fabric but the value is all wrong so I have decided that all the fluffy chest feathers are going to be machine embroidered rather than attempting to piece them randomly although I may keep a couple that are hanging out on the left side and then machine quilt some more.

The blues and blue/greens are the fabrics I am auditioning for the background. This may be where I employ some of Janet's techniques (although mine will be a lot more subtle and will be background rather than a "leading" design element). I may chose, however, just to do a curved pieced background like I did in my Yellowstone pieces (long curved pieces of different fabrics horizontally). I will use whole pieces on the bottom of some of my hand painted/dyed fabrics.

April RAFA Meeting

This is a collage of the various pieces that were made for an sale/exhibit at the contemporary art center here in Rochester. They are all for sale for $20 each and these are being donated for the sale. Each piece is 6" x 6" even though they look different sizes.

A beyond gorgeous spring day and a lovely meeting of our RAFA group! There were lots of things to share at Show and Tell and a great afternoon presentation by members Jeanne Beck and Deborah Pope on developing a portfolio and artists' statements. Both these women are very accomplished in the tough world of fiber arts - Jeanne as a multimedia surface designer/quilt artist and Deborah as an extraordinary doll artist. They both shared their personal experiences in developing these tools for those of us who want to take some next steps up in pursuing representation through galleries, increase our teaching or merely show a more professional presence when selling our art.

One thing that Jeanne said really stuck with me and that was that developing your Artist's Statement really helped you focus on what you were trying to accomplish as an artist. I really think that is true. This type of artist's statement is an overall view of what you are doing rather than those statements that are attached to a specific piece of work which most people hate to do!


This purse just wowed me for a couple of reasons -- one I loved the fabric but two, it has the cleverest idea for the zipper!!! It is actually a half each from two separating zippers so you have a two tone zipper. I think you will have to double click on the picture to see the two colors -- how cool is that!

This is one of the many pieces that Sarah Terry shared today. She has been working feverishly the past two weeks after the passing of her mother.

The above piece by Sarah and this piece by Caren Betlinski both incorporate the Shiva paints and techniques illustrated in the Quilting Arts magazine.

This was the apron that Donna did using these Shiva sticks with stamps behind the fabric. It is just wonderful!

Okay, one last snow dye for the season!! Anne still has some snow in her yard way south of here. She said the snow is pretty wet by now and she had a pile of pieces and this was my very favorite. She has been dyeing up a storm lately. I think she is officially over on that dark side!!

It's Spring!

Coming up the street today, I could see that our front yard was ablaze with color from the crocus (croci?)! Warren tries to plant more each year and has since we moved in. Unfortunately a skunk ate most of last year's crop, but I am sure he will be at it again late summer. As the temps are supposed to be in the 80's this weekend, I know these will all be gone by Monday but they are at their peak of color today.

These are amongst my favorites as I love purple and orange together. Has to be a quilt in there somewhere.


And finally the beginnings of the Great Blue Heron!! Usually I piece the background first but decided to go for the bird first this time. Because the background looks kind of plain in the original photo, I have decided to do some piecing in those areas to make that negative space a little more interesting. I am calling this one something like "From a Fish's Perspective" as I am kind of looking up at him and there is some foreshortening of the neck because of this. He was sitting on a post in the original photo but will be in the water in the quilt -- ah, artistic license! I am using a lot of blues in this even though they read as grey or black as he is called the Great Blue Heron (even though he looks grey to me...).

Now I have to put this aside for a couple of days as I have homework to do for the weekend and I have cheated for half the assignment already. We were supposed to construct a series of blocks using exercises from a design book. I chose to use EQ6 and design them there instead of in cloth. (The good part of this was that I learned several new things I could do in Electric Quilt which is always a plus!) The second part of the exercises is to use specific paintings and create value studies from them. I will actually do that one in cloth (although fused instead of my usual piecing). So will have to hop to it!

Rainy Day Project

Well, I finally finished this hexagon layout top, even getting a border on it. It is all just a plain hexagon block and just one fabric. The top measures about 84 x 72 so it is pretty good sized! It will end up down at the beach house I suspect.

Priscilla insists it is still too red so I picked one of the border fabrics (leftover hand dye from a project long ago) in a color between the red and the purples to shift it a little in the purple direction.

This is really a "primary" color scheme which I never work in. It is primarily navy blue (background), yellow and red but shaded way down.

I might add that the border fabric cost about 5 times what the fabric for the inside did!! The inside was a Walmart special home dec fabric. It was interesting though, in that the print went all the way through and the back of the fabric was almost identical to the front which is very unusual in cheap fabric. The repeat was about 24 inches. Now hopefully I have this hexagon layout out of my system but I suspect not. They are even more fun than regular old Bethany Reynolds "stack and whacks".

So I am back to working on a Great Blue Heron quilt. I am awaiting an order of fabrics from my favorite discount online fabric place -- Thousands of Bolts. I decided that the background was very boring so I needed to do some piecing to jazz it up a little. (It doesn't take too much of an excuse to order fabric from these folks.)

The Almighty Dollar Exhibit

What a beautiful day in Rochester! On my way to the Almighty Dollar Exhibit at the Rundel Library in downtown Rochester, I couldn't help but stop and take in the view down the Genessee with the new bridge in the background! Although beautifully sunny, it was definitely a crisp day.
This was looking through the buildings from the library to my old workplace where I spent the better part of 30 years (Xerox). That grey building looks much better on a sunny day than during our usual cloudy weather!



The Almighty Dollar Exhibit is right downstairs when you enter the Rundel Library (just go inside and make an immediate right turn down the stairs). It basically is in the area that links the Rundel with the Bausch and Lomb Library Building. The quilts are contained in the link as well as in the sitting area of the B & L building. I found parking during the middle of the day right on the bridge over the Genessee and it was a pleasant walk to the library from there.


Diane Enerson, Elizabeth Anderson and Jeanne Simpson pieces are along this wall

Mary Diamond's frowning George is the first one pictured here.

As I hadn't managed to get a picture of Marcia's beautiful quilt, thought I would picture it today. Note the pyramid and the "all seeing eye" from the dollar bill.
This was Pat Pauly's quilt which pictures George in a much more colorful way! Pat organized the challenge, got funding, found a venue and curated the exhibit. Thanks Pat -- it looks great!
Here was my contribution which is called Red, White and Blue and Green Allover. I incorpor-ated several of the symbols from the dollar bill including the 13 gold stars (in the shape of an altar) and the green olive leaves floating on the top of the fractured flag symbolizing my hopes for peace.

The Exhibit will be at the Rundel Library until the end of April. There are two talks scheduled as well. The Library is open all days (closed on Easter) and open late on Thursday night so a perfect thing to do before going to a concert!

Squirrel, Squirrel, Squirrelly

Who knows that they should take their camera when heading to the movies! Certainly not I. But yesterday, scurrying around a friend's neighborhood was the most beautiful white "gray" squirrel. I knew there was a group of them living here in Webster but didn't expect to see one in Irondequoit on my way to the movies! I went back today and did manage to get a couple of photos.

When I was growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs, gray squirrels were all over and not at all shy. For some reason, in Western NY, they act like wild animals and run as fast as they can if they come within 30 feet of you. They are just as common but very skittish -- not like those nice fox squirrels in the midwest.

Now I have seen the black morph of the grey squirrel in both Toronto and in Washington DC and I hear they are also present here in Western NY but haven't seen one. This white morph was new to me. You can see by the picture that it is not an albino which was my first thought when I heard of this variation. It isn't completely white, just whitish. The one I saw yesterday was even lighter and had a fluffier tale -- really a beautiful creature! So maybe we are a bit like Alaska with adaptive colors for our harsh winters!

Another beautiful day in Rochester although a bit chilly. I had passed by the bay yesterday and saw ducks floating around and wondered what they were so went back today to take some photos. I still don't know what they are!! I am thinking that they are common eiders but not so sure so hopefully my all-knowing sister will see this and correctly identify for me so I don't have to go back and take more and more pictures!

I thought they had the weirdest beaks which look like they tip down at the end. I thought they might be grebes but definitely not long enough in the neck nor do they have the coloring. My first assumption had been scaups but don't seem to be the ones I have seen at least (the great scaups).

My Quilt History and Thanks to Some Along the Way!

For some unknown reason, I felt the compulsion over the past few days to gather up and document every quilt or top that I have ever made! It is scary when you think you have everything accounted for and you find a queen sized hand quilted quilt that you had totally forgotten about! So now I have three Picasa albums with most of my quilts with labels. There are 4 or 5 baby quilts that remain out there undocumented (and probably unlabelled as well!).

This was my very first quilt and was taken from a book by Sandra Foose. I never bothered looking at the finished size - just figured it was a nice wall hanging. Well it is about single bed sized. I hand quilted it on my large quilting frame using the "stab" stitch which is what I had been taught by my very first quilt teacher. I of course hated quilting that way and was very put off quilting for sometime until I took a beginning quilt class with Suzie Payne here in Rochester. She has a couple of Dover books and really put you through your paces. Back then I was only interested in applique and learned to piece just because I felt you should have all the basics. It is a case of "never say you won't be interested in something". I still have my applique piece in quilttop form lying unquilted for 20 years!

This is one of my early applique quilts made in about 1984 before my Suzie class. Still doing that stab stitching although not much of it!

This was made for my older daughter Lisa and I still have it! Maybe it is time to do a bit more quilting in it!






This was the first quilt I ever entered into a quilt show and the quilt show was in Albany NY called NYQuilts. I won a third place ribbon and also a Vendor's Choice. It was the beginning of the purple quilts. I have made 20 quilts out of the pieces I cut out originally for this quilt. I gave away three more large bags of strips and also have made about 20 yards of fabric with the remaining strips (and would you believe I found two more baggies in my sewing room just last week). The quilt is the quilt block called kalaidoscope and seems to anticipate what I did later! It is of course hand quilted as all my early quilts were. I worked full time in rather demanding jobs up through 1999 and loved to sit and hand quilt at night.

This was my version of Nancy Murty's Barns. Nancy was a relative unknown at the time and I took one of her first classes at a local shop. I had seen her quilts hanging in the shop and was totally wowed and asked the women why I had never heard of her since she had a local name and address. Seems she had just quit her graphics job and moved to Rochester to pursue what has been an extremely successful career in pattern and fabric design. This contains a lot of my hand painted fabric and some of my hand dyed fabric. This quilt was probably done about 1999-2000 sometime.

When I was working, I used to go to the local thrift shops at lunchtime in search of old sewing machines to buy and repair. I started buying up all the old silk ties I could find. This quilt is made from those recycled ties, mostly foulards from the 80's. I called it Thrift Shop Stained Glass and it was in several quilt shows. It is hand quilted and this was the first time I used wool batting and I have never gone back!

This was my NY Beauty done from the Karen Stone pattern. This is where I learned to paper piece, something I decidedly dislike but was perfect for this project. It used to hang in my daughter's apartment but now languishes on a guest bed. It is machine quilted and won a Second Place ribbon at NYQuilts.

This was the first "stack and whack" I ever did -- just to test the process and see if the fabric I picked up off a sale rack would work. I used Bethany Reynolds' books for inspiration and technique. This one is called Bunnies in my Flower Garden and was made the year my mother (Bunny) died. The bunny shape in the four corners along the "fence" is how my mother used to sign her letters. It is machine quilted and was finished in 1998 I believe.

This was the last of the stack and whacks that I took seriously. I probably made 25 or more of these quilts through the years and it was a great place to practice my quilting designs and border designs and applications and balance. This was the most difficult because I used my hand dyed fabrics to shade from the outside in making a medallion quilt. Finding the right quilting design was also a challenge but I finally did and it turned out very well. I swore off seriously making these quilts after this one! (I still lapse occasionally as they are really like candy and hard to stop once you find the right fabrics.)

I have finished several old tops over the years -- always hand quilting them. This was originally 9 stars that I purchased at an antique shop here in Rochester. They were very wonky (you could have taken one point out and they would have been flat). Suzie always said you could quilt out any wobbles and she was right. I found this green background fabric and hand quilted the heck out of it. Several dealers have cautioned me to put a label on this quilt so someone will not think it is an 1800's quilt as it wasn't finished until 1999.

The lesson is that you shouldn't be discouraged by your beginning attempts and you should also try everything as you never know what you will learn or ultimately be interested in! I took my first dyeing class merely as a filler and it hooked me almost immediately.

If you are extremely bored, you might take a look at all my quilts in these three albums. The Quilts album is the newest one, with many of the quilts that have been in my blog along the way. The other two contain the older quilts done from about 1979 through 1999.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Elizabeth.Brandkamp/OlderQuilts, http://picasaweb.google.com/Elizabeth.Brandkamp/Quilts#, http://picasaweb.google.com/Elizabeth.Brandkamp/EvenMoreEarlierQuilts#